Law & Disorder —

Network neutrality in Congress, round 3: Fight!

Ed Markey (D-MA) is a big fan of "third time's the charm." He has introduced …

The war over network neutrality has been fought in the last two Congresses, and last week's introduction of the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009" (PDF) means that legislators will duke it out a third time. Should the bill pass, Internet service providers will not be able to "block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade" access to any lawful content from any lawful application or device.

ISPs would also be forbidden to "impose a charge" on content providers that goes "beyond the end-user charges associated with providing the service to such a provider." In other words, AT&T doesn't have to let Google "use its pipes for free," but it can only collect the money is owed through customary peering and transit arrangements.

The bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA)—who introduced similar legislation during the last Congressional session. During the Congressional session before that, Markey pushed network neutrality as an amendment rather than a standalone bill. Neither method has yet been successful.

"The Internet has thrived and revolutionized business and the economy precisely because it started as an open technology," said co-sponsor Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) in a statement. "This bill will ensure that the non-discriminatory framework that allows the Internet to thrive and competition on the Web to flourish is preserved at a time when our economy needs it the most."

The bill goes out of its way to beat the "lack of competition" drum, noting that "the overwhelming majority of residential consumers subscribe to Internet access service from 1 of only 2 wireline providers: the cable operator or the telephone company." Given this limited choice, the bill warns that ISPs "have an economic interest to discriminate in favor of their own services, content, and applications and against other providers."

And thus... this bill, which defines US policy as anti-discrimination and pro-capacity upgrades, even for "applications and services that require substantial downstream and upstream bandwidth."

Rulemaking and enforcement of network neutrality would be given to the Federal Communications Commission, which would also be given the unenviable job of hashing out what constitutes "reasonable network management"—something explicitly allowed by the bill. Such management must be "narrowly tailored" and the techniques used must be "the least restrictive, least discriminatory, and least constricting of consumer choice available." Detailed rules are left to the FCC.

Neutrality would also not apply to the access and transfer of unlawful information, including "theft of content," so a mythical deep packet inspection device that could block illegal P2P transfers with 100 percent accuracy would still be allowed.

If enacted, the bill would allow any US Internet user to file a neutrality complaint with the FCC and receive a ruling within 90 days. If an ISP is found to be in violation, damages may have to be paid to "the complaining party," which sounds like an excellent way to deputize Internet users into probing their ISPs for discriminatory practices.

Markey's last two attempts at pushing network neutrality have faltered, but with a new president and new FCC chair in place—and both open to the concept—the idea's political fortunes may have shifted as well.

That's certainly the hope of Free Press, the media reform group that spearheaded the fight against Comcast's P2P throttling technique last year. "An army of lobbyists has been unleashed by the phone and cable companies to kill Net Neutrality so they can become the Internet’s gatekeepers," said Policy Director Ben Scott. "But the momentum is shifting in the public’s favor. President Obama has repeatedly called for Net Neutrality; we have a new pro-Net Neutrality chairman now heading the Federal Communications Commission; and popular support is growing every day."

22 Reader Comments

How many could picture the video game voice over at the end of the title? Can't remember if it was Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter with the "Round 3. Fight!" voice over but as I read the title that was all I could think about. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure it was Mortal Kombat.

Personally, I am a bit concerned with the insistence on government regulation where it isn't entirely necessary, but I also understand the lack of competition in the broadband market making it likely a foregone conclusion.

What I propose is the following - the federal government sets aside funding for large-scale fiber deployment, and have the FCC accept plans from the ISPs about how they intend to manage traffic on their networks. If the FCC determines that, in a particular market, there is no sufficiently open network, then the government uses some of the set-aside funding, deploys into the area, and then leases the capacity (at wholesale rates) to a third party willing to operate under open conditions laid out by the FCC.

I'm not entirely convinced that the neutrality argument, at its core, is necessarily an important factor in expanding the market penetration of broadband Internet, but the availability of open networks should be a necessary condition, especially for those who seek to develop the next generation of Internet applications.

The only reason that ISPs could be "gatekeepers" is because of this ridiculous model where they own the last mile of cable.

In sane countries (e.g., Japan) the last mile of cable is public utility and the ISPs provide what their name says, Internet. Many different ISPs compete for your IP traffic, with different bandwidth and pricing options.

After reading this article, I think I finally understand the word "paradigm".

To be less opaque, I get the sense that this is an attempt to legislate what we should have anyway.

The local cable company efficiently blocked Bittorrent streams, which is fine - they can do whatever they want to manage their network.

I quit that service and signed up for another one that doesn't shape their Internet service. If there hadn't been another such service, I would have chosen the cheapest provider for a lower-teir plan that assumed very little upload traffic.

I think that attempts to legislate network neutrality are overkill that will have unintended consequences; for one example, what is "legal traffic"? With that fuzzy definition in the bill it's possible that we can legislate a less neutral network that we already have.

Originally posted by Hypnos7:The only reason that ISPs could be "gatekeepers" is because of this ridiculous model where they own the last mile of cable.

In sane countries (e.g., Japan) the last mile of cable is public utility and the ISPs provide what their name says, Internet. Many different ISPs compete for your IP traffic, with different bandwidth and pricing options.

In the US, most of your utilities are your property and your responsibility from the street to your house. The last connection to your home's internal systems is part of your house, covered by your home owners insurance and your responsibility to keep in good working order.

This is not the case with the telephone or cable companies. The telco's own all the wiring right up to the spot where it is attached to your house. Same with the cable company. I've even seen it where the home's cable wires from the individual wall jacks in the house terminate in a locked cable box outside their house. My neighbor is like this to this day. Property owners should be able to install any amount of wiring that they feel appropriate on their property. Turning ownership of those lines over to property owners gives property owners more say in what services can and cannot get to their house.

I own my gas, water and electrical connections. Why should my voice, video and data connections be any different?

@Kressilac: The utilities own the infrastructure up to a demarcation point, at which point the property owner assumes all responsibility for the rest of the pipe/cables that enter their premise. (This hasn't always been the case, historically, but that's how things stand now.) The property owner often has the option of paying the utility to maintain the infrastructure inside their house, but most do not these days. I'm not aware of any cable/telco company that forces you to accept their wiring inside your premise.

Whether that demarcation point is out at the curb or on the side of your building doesn't really matter. It is a necessary connection hand-off that includes legal responsibility for its integrity by the utility to their side of the hand-off. The connection boxes are typically locked at the utility side (to prevent tampering), but the customer's terminals are (or should be) freely accessible. If the cable-service spitter box is locked without customer access to a demarcation terminal, then the customer should mount their own self-service box right next to it and install their own spitter inside. Yes, it gets to be messy, but clearly defined hand-offs tend to have more parts.

If you wanted to move your wiring demarcation point to the very edge of your property, you could (local codes permitting) install a utility pole or cable vault at the boundary, install all the demarcation points right there, and then have full control of everything from there to your house to your outlets. But the utility side of the connection boxes are theirs.

I think the best way to deal with these issues is to separate the infrastructure from the services. If they are going to legislate something, my suggestion would be the following:

Put everything like this in the same pot, such as radio, internet radio, satellite radio, TV, Cable TV, Satellite TV, Internet TV, ISP, Data, phone, cell phone, VoIP phone, etc., all into one basket and set equal rules for them all. It's all just data, so treat it as such.

Break the infrastructure apart from the services. You would have companies that do nothing but put in poles, cables, towers, satellites, etc, and charge a flat rate (the same rate for everyone), for access to them. The actual lines/towers themselves would not be owned by the company though. They would be owned by the town/county/state. Satellites would have to be handled on a national scale, possibly a bond/stock program owned by personal consumers.

The service providers then lease pipe/signal from them the same as the average consumer. This would also increase competition because the small companies could get in on the act as well since the infrastructure would be available to them as well. It would also break the local monopolies that the cable and phone companies have now. Then, instead of 2 options or less in most areas, you would most likely have several options for each.

The thing is we have gotten ourselves back into the position we were in with the Ma Bell and AT&T case a few decades back. Remember how much things changed in the first few years following that break up? We found out phones worked even if they weren't black, rotary, and 10 pounds. We also discovered nifty new things like Fax machines and modems. But somewhere along the line, we dropped the ball and found ourselves back in the same position with only a few companies holding all the cards again. I think it is time for another break, but instead of just breaking up the companies into smaller ones, we break up the functions so that they can't gain total control again.

I don't think they will be able to block any p2p stuff, unless they can block it a download at a time. If they are going to require 100% illegal then that won't happen. p2ptends to have at least a small amount of perfectly legal stuff floating around on it.

Laws and regulations DO NOT create true network neutrality. What I wrote to both the FCC and Rep. Markey:

The only true form of 'Net neutrality is the kind where the physical medium - the wires or "tubes" - is collectively owned by the public. Our network of roads is almost entirely publicly owned, and the companies that build and maintain them are contractors... we don't allow them to own the stretches of asphalt they lay down. Contractors are exactly what AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and all the others in the telecom infrastructure ownership business should be, rather than owners.

We made an error in judgement when AT&T began laying the first telegraph wires, and we failed to recognize the future import and insist that they deed the wires to the public trust. We perhaps had a second chance to correct our error when AT&T was hauled into court for antitrust issues: we could have forced AT&T to sell back the wires to We The People at that time, as a part of the judgement, or perhaps transitioned it into a non-profit pseudo-governmental agency like the USPS, rather than breaking it into smaller entities which STILL owned the wires in their respective fiefdoms.

We're still paying - dearly - for that original error in judgement and our continuing failure to recognize the error and deal with it, even belatedly. It appears that it might now require a revolution with guns to get the wires back into public hands, because the only way any of these corporations' CEOs are going to relinquish this profit-making control is by forcibly prying the wires from the vise-like grasp of their cold dead fingers.

As a result, we now talk about kludges and band-aids for the problem, in the form of laws and regulations, and we call these band-aids "Net neutrality" even though they're really nothing of the sort.

Does the FCC have the spine and "guns" to finally create true telecom network neutrality? I doubt it, but I suggest that perhaps you should try. If not, please do not entertain any of these legislative band-aids: in this case covering the wound with a band-aid will not actually aid in healing, rather only hide the wound from view and defer the surgery necessary to finally heal it. LET IT FESTER IN THE OPEN - in other words let the telecom companies section and "tier" the network - until it becomes so noxious that we're collectively ready to agree to the surgery.

Originally posted by VulcanTourist:Laws and regulations DO NOT create true network neutrality. What I wrote to both the FCC and Rep. Markey:

The only true form of 'Net neutrality is the kind where the physical medium - the wires or "tubes" - is collectively owned by the public. Our network of roads is almost entirely publicly owned, and the companies that build and maintain them are contractors... we don't allow them to own the stretches of asphalt they lay down. Contractors are exactly what AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and all the others in the telecom infrastructure ownership business should be, rather than owners.

We made an error in judgement when AT&T began laying the first telegraph wires, and we failed to recognize the future import and insist that they deed the wires to the public trust. We perhaps had a second chance to correct our error when AT&T was hauled into court for antitrust issues: we could have forced AT&T to sell back the wires to We The People at that time, as a part of the judgement, or perhaps transitioned it into a non-profit pseudo-governmental agency like the USPS, rather than breaking it into smaller entities which STILL owned the wires in their respective fiefdoms.

We're still paying - dearly - for that original error in judgement and our continuing failure to recognize the error and deal with it, even belatedly. It appears that it might now require a revolution with guns to get the wires back into public hands, because the only way any of these corporations' CEOs are going to relinquish this profit-making control is by forcibly prying the wires from the vise-like grasp of their cold dead fingers.

As a result, we now talk about kludges and band-aids for the problem, in the form of laws and regulations, and we call these band-aids "Net neutrality" even though they're really nothing of the sort.

Does the FCC have the spine and "guns" to finally create true telecom network neutrality? I doubt it, but I suggest that perhaps you should try. If not, please do not entertain any of these legislative band-aids: in this case covering the wound with a band-aid will not actually aid in healing, rather only hide the wound from view and defer the surgery necessary to finally heal it. LET IT FESTER IN THE OPEN - in other words let the telecom companies section and "tier" the network - until it becomes so noxious that we're collectively ready to agree to the surgery.

++ . This is the most sensible opinion on the subject that I have ever read. Common sense.

There seems to be quite a few sensible comments on how to manage access to data here in the US. I agree that the actual framework should be owned by American citizens instead of private corperations. This would increase competition, especially for isp's, as they must now bide against each other for our money. The way we have it right now effectivly limits how fast our networks are upgraded (hardly ever) and what sort of prices we are paying. I live in an area that only has two ISP's that offer service, Comcast = Cable, Quest = DSL. What incentive is there to lay down fiber optic cables when Comcast can charge 50$ a month for basic cable internet? What if I want cable but think Comcast charges too much? Looks like my only other choice is DSL which is fairly less favorable, bandwidth wise. It's time to take back what should rightfully be the public's in the first place and put these crook ISP's in their place. In what way is only have one cable provider not a monopoly?

It has always been my firm belief that the internet should be free and available to everyone. We are the leaders of the free world, we should lead by example and allow everyone who lives here the opportunity to access information on the internet. It has long since evolved from its primal form as a techy luxory to a full blown basic human right.

Originally posted by SgtCupCake:It has always been my firm belief that the internet should be free and available to everyone. We are the leaders of the free world, we should lead by example and allow everyone who lives here the opportunity to access information on the internet. It has long since evolved from its primal form as a techy luxory to a full blown basic human right.

I like your thinking- so how should we do this? Should I mail you my broadband bill for you to pay, or do you just want to send me a check and I'll mail it in to Comcast?

Obviously the solution would not be simple. My initial thought would be to continue with a competitive market and then have some "lower tier" plan that would be subsidized by the government which would be free to everyone. This would allow people to connect and have access to the internet and still encourage competition where if users wanted faster service (as to enjoy streaming and online media) they could opt for a pay plan from an ISP. There are of course other ideas out there and many other factors to consider, I am just throwing my two cents in for a sensible solution.

We don't need a "free" tier. That kind of subsidization is wasteful. In South Korea nation-wide you can get 2Mb/512Kbit DSL for $3/month. It's basically a break-even service. I think that would be enough for everyone, even the poor, to connect.

Originally posted by tx2tn:I think the best way to deal with these issues is to separate the infrastructure from the services. If they are going to legislate something, my suggestion would be the following:

Put everything like this in the same pot, such as radio, internet radio, satellite radio, TV, Cable TV, Satellite TV, Internet TV, ISP, Data, phone, cell phone, VoIP phone, etc., all into one basket and set equal rules for them all. It's all just data, so treat it as such.

Break the infrastructure apart from the services. You would have companies that do nothing but put in poles, cables, towers, satellites, etc, and charge a flat rate (the same rate for everyone), for access to them. The actual lines/towers themselves would not be owned by the company though. They would be owned by the town/county/state. Satellites would have to be handled on a national scale, possibly a bond/stock program owned by personal consumers.

The service providers then lease pipe/signal from them the same as the average consumer. This would also increase competition because the small companies could get in on the act as well since the infrastructure would be available to them as well. It would also break the local monopolies that the cable and phone companies have now. Then, instead of 2 options or less in most areas, you would most likely have several options for each.

The thing is we have gotten ourselves back into the position we were in with the Ma Bell and AT&T case a few decades back. Remember how much things changed in the first few years following that break up? We found out phones worked even if they weren't black, rotary, and 10 pounds. We also discovered nifty new things like Fax machines and modems. But somewhere along the line, we dropped the ball and found ourselves back in the same position with only a few companies holding all the cards again. I think it is time for another break, but instead of just breaking up the companies into smaller ones, we break up the functions so that they can't gain total control again.

Originally posted by VulcanTourist:Laws and regulations DO NOT create true network neutrality. What I wrote to both the FCC and Rep. Markey:

The only true form of 'Net neutrality is the kind where the physical medium - the wires or "tubes" - is collectively owned by the public.

...

Does the FCC have the spine and "guns" to finally create true telecom network neutrality? I doubt it, but I suggest that perhaps you should try. If not, please do not entertain any of these legislative band-aids: in this case covering the wound with a band-aid will not actually aid in healing, rather only hide the wound from view and defer the surgery necessary to finally heal it. LET IT FESTER IN THE OPEN - in other words let the telecom companies section and "tier" the network - until it becomes so noxious that we're collectively ready to agree to the surgery.

++ . This is the most sensible opinion on the subject that I have ever read. Common sense.

I agree with the concept of network as a public utility, but I disagree with the political strategy espoused in the posting.

There are two issues conflated in the post:1. "Network Neutrality" - which I take to mean neutral carriage regulation2. Publicly funded infrastructure

The strategy suggested seems to be to OPPOSE legislation to the first issue, and pursue legislation for the second issue.

I think you are putting the cart before the horse. It takes time to put together political deals, and Public Infrastructure is not even on the table right now. It's just a red herring to any arguments on Network Neutrality.

On the other hand, Network Neutrality *IS* on the table - it has legs. If you organize and push this it *might* go somewhere, whereas Public Infrastructure isn't going *anywhere* right now (especially at the Federal level!). Furthermore, these are not mutually exclusive goals. Passage of Network Neutrality legislation does not exclude pursuing Public Infrastructure in the future.

Additionally, Public Infrastructure is a *municipal* problem. You need to work with your city government if you want to build out public last mile infrastructure. The federal government has no jursidiction. If you think its hard work to convince your city government to build out a public network, realize that it is even harder for "the federal government" to convince a city government to do so. You have more political leverage as a city resident than anyone in Washington DC.

Article:Neutrality would also not apply to the access and transfer of unlawful information, including "theft of content," so a mythical deep packet inspection device that could block illegal P2P transfers with 100 percent accuracy would still be allowed.

If enacted, the bill would allow any US Internet user to file a neutrality complaint with the FCC and receive a ruling within 90 days. If an ISP is found to be in violation, damages may have to be paid to "the complaining party," which sounds like an excellent way to deputize Internet users into probing their ISPs for discriminatory practices.

I doubt that real-world traffic shaping would be limited to the mythical deep packet inspection device with 100% accuracy. I think that's a rosy view of the world.

In the real-world, with such an exemption in place, I would expect most ISPs to continue to shape bittorrent traffic, for example, under the excuse and presumption that the traffic is illegal, with only superficial packet inspection. Not only that, but they will continue to shape any traffic they want initially to see what they can get away with. What teeth are in the bill? Right now, it only requires that damages be paid to the customer, which could be - what - $100 for a month of service interruption? $3 for each documented day of service interruption? I don't think that will be enough to deter any anti-competitive behavior. In fact, what this does is limit neutrality complaints to those applications with large customer bases only (maybe Skype) where damages can be large. What is needed are large statutory damages to deter behavior.

What burden of proof? If you file a complaint, will you have to submit traffic logs? If the ISP pulls up your traffic logs to expose that you ARE transferring illegal information on bittorent, will you increase your risk of being held liable for infringement? How many people use bittorrent exclusively for legal activities? How many people want to take that risk?

Presumably, like all complaint handling and triage processes, the FCC will want to see some threshold of complaints before taking action. If you are one of the few bittorrent users who does use bittorrent exclusively for legal activities, you may not have enough peers to exceed the threshold to get any action.

Even so, is it good enough? If a few edge case users are shaped out of service, but we get neutral carriage for apps that are "big enough", is that good enough? It seems to me the big war is over anti-competitive behavior around digital audio/video distribution and VOIP. I think big companies would be able to successfully prosecute neutrality complaints. But would small startup applications, like a future Skype, even be able to get a foothold in order to ever become big?

What we need is some way to get more competition in the high speed network. What is the options in most area 2-3 at most, cable, DSL, Fiber optic, Mobile broadband through mobile networks and the really unlucky who can't anything satellite(which is really expensive). If there was more there would be better pricing. What they need is to create a fiber network like the old telephone line system and dial up where there wasn't just the Big ISPs, but there would be little ones as well so there a lot of competition.

Originally posted by blueeyes:Additionally, Public Infrastructure is a *municipal* problem. You need to work with your city government if you want to build out public last mile infrastructure. The federal government has no jursidiction. If you think its hard work to convince your city government to build out a public network, realize that it is even harder for "the federal government" to convince a city government to do so. You have more political leverage as a city resident than anyone in Washington DC.

fwiw, in some states, laws have been proposed (and perhaps passed, I'm not sure) which pre-empt municipal attempts to deploy and maintain data networks. Those laws have been strongly supported by telcos on the basis that it's unfair 'competition'.

There's no particular reason why the federal government cannot have jurisdiction over this matter, given that the FCC regulates telecommunications already (though in some amazingly poor ways). We might argue about whether or not the federal government should get involved, but that's an argument that nobody's going to win.

The biggest two advantages of federal involvement (IMO) are:1. it allows the US to leverage federal assets, specifically interstate highway corridors, to place data conduit. Since the interstates (and other federal roads) go lots and lots of places, this has the potential to provide a strong foundation for a national data network.2. it encourages everyone to build systems that are compatible with other systems, both on a data level, and at the physical level. This encourages economies of scale, etc.

Originally posted by blueeyes:Additionally, Public Infrastructure is a *municipal* problem. You need to work with your city government if you want to build out public last mile infrastructure. The federal government has no jursidiction. If you think its hard work to convince your city government to build out a public network, realize that it is even harder for "the federal government" to convince a city government to do so. You have more political leverage as a city resident than anyone in Washington DC.

fwiw, in some states, laws have been proposed (and perhaps passed, I'm not sure) which pre-empt municipal attempts to deploy and maintain data networks. Those laws have been strongly supported by telcos on the basis that it's unfair 'competition'.

AT&T lobbied states for their UVERSE project. It was expedient for them to leverage the state governments against the municipalities so that they did not need to spend the time negotiating with each municipality. The cable company incumbents despised this freedom because they were leveraging the municipalities to keep AT&T out of their markets.

I'm not well versed on my cable company history, but I believe they put their networks in place in the 80s by going door to door within municipalities, signing people up, and negotiating with each municipality for rights-of-way. That created the modern day environment of public access channels, video coverage of city hall meetings, and educational video production work with public schools.

There's no particular reason why the federal government cannot have jurisdiction over this matter, given that the FCC regulates telecommunications already (though in some amazingly poor ways). We might argue about whether or not the federal government should get involved, but that's an argument that nobody's going to win.

The Constitution prevents the federal government from having jurisdiction over municipalities, which are governed by the states. The inroads for infringement of states-rights is always the interstate commerce clause.

In the case of cable, the research report I cited above clarifies that the FCC has jurisdiction over direct broadcast satellite systems like DirecTV, and federal law prohibits states from specifying how cable companies can offer channels. I think it is reasonable to see how interstate commerce arguments can be made around both of those items. The cable systems themselves, though, are under the authority of the states.

This document also provides a good flavor for how these issues play out in telecommunications. For interstate telecommunications, the FCC has jurisdiction. For intrastate telecommunications, the states have jursidiction. http://onthedocket.org/cases/p...-municipal-league-so

quote:

The biggest two advantages of federal involvement (IMO) are:1. it allows the US to leverage federal assets, specifically interstate highway corridors, to place data conduit. Since the interstates (and other federal roads) go lots and lots of places, this has the potential to provide a strong foundation for a national data network.2. it encourages everyone to build systems that are compatible with other systems, both on a data level, and at the physical level. This encourages economies of scale, etc.

I agree with point 1. Another way that the federal government can influence state behavior when interstate commerce does not apply is by providing financial incentive - a lot of laws were leveraged nationally against the states through highway money: drinking age of 21, national speed limits, right turn on red, and others. (Under the Obama administration we could well see laws against texting while driving, talking on cell phones while driving, and maybe even talking on cell phones using hands-free systems leveraged in through highway money.) So I have three points to make in harmony with your point:a) The federal government could pursue a public infrastructure initiative by putting money out there for the states to spend. They could even combine it with green initiatives (Stop Polluting! Start Telecommuting!)b) The federal government would have jurisdiction over interstate backbone c) The federal government could use a combination of (a) money and (b) connections to the backbone to drive standards and regulations across the states.

To your point 2, I think TCP/IP already takes care of this problem from the technical side, and there is no need for federal regulation to create interoperability. If a municipality builds a public infrastructure, they will want to connect it to the Internet so that everyone can access Google and Ars Technica. The incentives are already in place for compatibility. TCP/IP makes it so that the data can flow over any kind of networking hardware.

And to your point, economies of scale exist that make certain kinds of network hardware more cost effective, which will drive municipalities to adopt pretty similar equipment.

Lastly, I will go a little further and argue that actually I think it would be a bad idea to have the federal government set standards for municipal communications equipment. If the municipalities are free to choose new and innovative technologies, then we will see some competition and innovation in the market for communication technology. If the federal government sets the standard, then there will be only one technology choice, and communication technology development would stagnate.

If municipalities limit themselves to owning only the fiber, then they can sell fiber bandwidth to service provider companies that want to connect headend equipment, which would allow service providers to compete on upgrading head-end equipment to improve bandwidth utilization. That would maintain a competitive environment for innovative communication technologies.

But I have to finish with my main point - even though the federal government *could* undertake such an initiative, there is a lot of inertia. The most expedient route on which any Ars Technica denizen could embark towards the utopia of public infrastructure is the one that goes through the municipalities. If enough people in your city are willing to pay the taxes, you could get it in within a year. (See the Monticello article)

But I have to finish with my main point - even though the federal government *could* undertake such an initiative, there is a lot of inertia. The most expedient route on which any Ars Technica denizen could embark towards the utopia of public infrastructure is the one that goes through the municipalities. If enough people in your city are willing to pay the taxes, you could get it in within a year. (See the Monticello article)

This comment was edited by blueeyes on August 06, 2009 08:36

Except in cases where a state law has already been passed (then go to your state reps and see about getting it repealed, please!). Mostly we agree on how the federal government should approach this issue (don't mandate, provide access to federal resources, etc.), and that publicly-owned infrastructure would be a good idea.